PRAISED IN RUSSIA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 245, 13 September 1940, Page 7

PRAISED IN RUSSIA.

BRITISH WAR STRENGTH. LONDON, Aug. 30. The Soviet is unofficially praising Britian’s war effort and striking power. The ability of the Royal Air Force to shoot down hundreds of German machines and hurl back hundreds of others, while thrusting deep into the heart of Germany and Italy, simultaneously holding open vital sea lanes for trade, has impressed Russian economists. ' An article in the Moscow journal the Red Fleet, which is being re-published in the Stockholm Communist journal Nydag, states that the German air offensive against Britain must succeed during September or Germany will lose this phase of the war. The article emphasises the present German losses in machines and personnel, and the difficulty of landing troops in Britain. The Soviet economist, M. Y. Varga, writing in the magazine World Economics and Politics, declares that, economically, Britain can continue to wage war as long as the Red Ensign sails the sea, and in the military sphere Britain, with the material help of the United States, can carry on the war for a long time. This statement the Daily Mail takes as tantamount to recognition that Britain can fight indefinitely. Commentators believe that these tributes to Britain’s, power can be fairly interpreted to mean that Russia is beginning to have real faith in Britain’s ability to outlast the German and Italian efforts and win the war—a faith which would enable Russia to take a stronger line with the Axis, in Europe, especially, for instance, over Italian and German designs on Rumania. ’